206 VETERIXARV HOMCEOPATHY. 



causes may be functional only or due to structural changes in the 

 coats of the intestines; congestion of blood to the parts, and oc- 

 casionalU' inflammation arising from cold; through partaking of 

 large quantities of very cold water when overheated, especially in 

 the summer time; or in consequence of a check to perspiration 

 through standing about at draughty street corners or other ex- 

 posed places. In the horse there is little doubt that more often 

 than not injudicious dieting is responsible for the production of 

 diarrhoea; changing the food during spring time from that which 

 is of a hard, dry character to that which is green, moist and bulky; 

 new hay and oats in like manner are frequently accountable for a 

 relaxed condition of faeces, as also are oats that have become 

 heated and turned acid; it is also worthy of note, as being a some- 

 what remarkable and interesting observation, that both deficiency 

 and great excess of bile produce a liquid condition of the faeces; 

 the difference in the two extremes being that deficiency of bile 

 causes the faeces to scald and irritate the mucous membrane at the 

 anal orifice while an excess of bile does not bring about this very 

 unpleasant condition of the muco-cutaneous outlet, but imparts to 

 the faeces a very deep color and pungent odor and renders them of 

 extremely fluid consistence. According to Professor Robertson, 

 raw potatoes are very calculated to produce diarrhoea, the " faeces 

 being of a pale color, watery and of a peculiar and penetrating 

 odor;" our personal acquaintance with the effect of potatoes has 

 been confined to their use in a cooked form, and we certainly did 

 not observe any ill consequences upon the digestive organs. 

 Worms are at times responsible for the troublesome and persistent 

 forms of diarrhoea, and to quote Professor Robertson, " the par- 

 ticular parasite which appears more liable than others to act as an 

 inducing factor in the production of this state is the strongylus 

 tctracanthus, a very small nematoid of a flesh color, a true blood- 

 sucker and found inhabiting the coats of the intestines, chiefly the 

 colon and caecum. In addition to other symptoms indicative of 

 its existence in this situation— as wasting, an unhealthy state of 

 the skin, irregular appetite, with the occasional appearance of a 

 lielminth or two in the faeces— is intestinal irritability, with fitful 

 diarrhoea, not excessively watery." 



The only rational method to cure diarrhoea depending upon 

 intruders of this kind is to get rid of the cause, but in the case of 



